Eltam journal no 2 8th eltam iatefl tesol international biannual conference managing teaching and learning

 
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GRAMMAR TEACHING: CAN LESS BE MORE? 
 
Marjana Vaneva, PhD 
University American College Skopje 
Abstract 
Every teacher tends to be successful in their work by motivating students to learn what they 
are taught, so that they later see the learnt things used in practice. When speaking of teaching 
a language, the teacher’s biggest satisfaction is to hear their students use the language in a 
conversational act. But, in order to equip them with the forms that should be used in one act, 
among other parts of the language, the teachers should also teach grammar. Thus, grammar is 
an inevitable part of the language teaching process, which should be given a significant place 
in a language class. Still, although it is a fact that grammar has to be taught, it is an eternal 
debate among the teachers about how much grammar should be presented to students so that 
they learn it properly: whether explicit grammar rules should be taught, or limited ‘dosed’ 
grammar gives better results.
The 
paper examines several authors’ views on this question, considers several teaching 
experiences and gives priority to the stand that although, when it comes to teaching, the old 
belief is that the more information is offered, the more successful the teaching and the 
learning are, yet, this study tends to prove that the process of grammar teaching is more 
productive if ‘dosed’ grammar is presented to the students in a carefully planned way.

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Keywords:
English grammar, teaching, explicitly, implicitly.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Grammar Teaching: Can Less Be More? 
The paper is interested in several views on the way grammar is and how it should be taught. 
Factual information and experiment results are given about how grammar has been taught until 
now and what results that kind of teaching has produced. Since the main question of the paper 
is whether to teach grammar explicitly or not, the focus is on the amount of grammar that should 
be presented to students: whether they learn and perform better if they are given and presented 
all the rules they need to know in order to express themselves (accurately), or even when 
presented with fewer rules and less grammar, the students would still manage to use correct 
English. 
This dilemma whether less grammar can give more results is revisited due to the fact that 
students do not feel comfortable when presented explicit grammar rules, and to the accepted 
belief among most teachers that students dislike grammar, and therefore cannot learn the 
language when grammar is in focus.
The study aims at questioning the truthfullness of that belief and tends to show that it is not the 
mere image of grammar with its own complexity that 'frightens' the students, but it is the way 
this part of the language is presented. Namely, students may indeed dislike grammar but that is 
because it is presented forcefully and unpedagogically, without having learning in the focus, 
but concentrating on the material that needs to be covered and presented. Otherwise, if the right 
grammar form that is in accordance with the class objectives is taught in a planned way, the 
students would only benefit from that and their learning would be more successful.
In other words, even when teaching grammar, if students are given more practical information, 
rather than scarce, 'dry' explanation, they can be only more manageable in the learning process.

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91 
Generally speaking, teaching is a cognitive ability and is affected first by the teacher’s character 
individually, then by their experiences they have had in the classroom, and, of course, by the 
advice and lessons they are given when attending seminars, workshops and conferences 
(Vaneva, 2014).
Namely, during teaching, the teachers shape their instruction by what they have been taught, 
how they have been trained, and what they have experienced while teaching, so that they build 
their own perception of teaching and later on practise it in their work. 
When it comes to teaching grammar, in this case English grammar, which this paper analyses, 
although the reasoning given here can refer to other languages too, the evidence in literature 
shows that the teachers, who are uncertain of their knowledge of grammar, try to avoid teaching 
it whenever it is possible. They can do that because they do not feel confident in their knowledge 
of grammar and therefore they do not feel secure when teaching it, as a result, they avoid 
grammar teaching to ‘protect’ themselves from the students’ grammar questions and to ‘secure’ 
a more enjoyable class atmosphere for themselves and for the students when grammar is being 
taught.
Although in literature there are no explicit studies on the relationship between how teachers 
perceive their knowledge of grammar and how they teach in the classroom, yet, there are authors 
cited in Borg (2001), who claim that new teachers who felt their knowledge of grammar is 
inadequate, they avoid teaching grammar 
– a fact that goes in favour of the previously stated 
opinion. As a result, this alludes to the fact that the teachers’ good knowledge of grammar gives 
them confidence, and confidence motivates their behavior, that is, it determines how they teach 
in the classroom. Thus, the teachers’ experience tailors how much grammar they would teach.
Since in literature it has already been proven that grammar is best taught in context, and 
authentic material should be used to produce better results, the question that arises again, to 
which I am constantly coming back and thus examining its value is how much grammar should 
be taught, that is, whether teaching more or less grammar would give better results.
Baron (1982) (as cited in Al-Mekhlafi & Nagaratham, 2011) says that very often an English 
teacher is perceived as a person whose only pleasure is to find the faults of others. 
Consequently, when grammar is mentioned, the students feel bored, but also uncomfortable, 
and even terrified. That is why they are uninterested in class, undisciplined, or even skip 
grammar classes, only to minimize the discomfort, but actually in that way they only postpone 
the problem they are facing with and they deprive themselves from being enabled to produce a 
well-educated expression in English.
Therefore, the teachers should reconsider the way in which they teach grammar, meaning the 
amount of grammar information they would present to their students in class. It is rather 
simple and pretty understandable that if the selection and the approach are made properly, 
then the students will enjoy the class, they will experience the learning process more 
positively, and eventually benefit from grammar teaching.

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Provided we accept the fact that grammar is seen as a main demotivating force among L2 
learners, it should be unanimouslybelieved that grammar prevents students from speaking 
fluently, that is, if they feel they lack grammar rules, they will not use and speak the language 
actively.
This again poses the central question whether more or less grammar should be taught, so that 
the students better learn the language and the teachers are perceived as more successful 
instructors.
Method 
The paper is based on research done by the author about different views on grammar teaching, 
present in the EFL literature, and draws conclusions from a survey completed by English 
teachers in Macedonia and Slovenia, and their perceptions of grammar teaching.  
The answer to the main question of this paper is found among the answers that the respondents 
of the electronic survey gave.
Namely, scientifically it is an unproven, but subconsciously an accepted fact that less is more, 
when it comes to teaching and learning, which, transferred to our context, means that when less, 
planned grammar is presented to students in a more focused way, they definitely learn more. 
This stems from the understanding that grammar should be taught to each level and age group, 
and language teaching should definitely consist of grammar teaching (Toska et al., 2011, 
Kaçani, 2013) since grammar is an inevitable part of the language, but what the paper is mainly 
concerned with and tends to 
convey is that first the teachers ought to determine their students’ 
level of English and then teach the appropriate amount of grammar, that is, they should give 
the students ‘dosed’ input, as much as they can process, which would normally result in a 
production of correct output.
In other words, if the students are given all the explanation and presented all the grammar rules, 
regardless of their level and their previous language background, the students would be 
confused with all the information presented to them, they would not know how to apply it, and 
they would not be able to upgrade their previous knowledge with the new facts. This would 
definitely yield no results, as far as grammar teaching is concerned and learning and mastering 
this language part is to be catered for. 
Therefore, at university, on seminars, workshops, the teachers should be taught that they should 
make the right assessment of their students’ level of English, group them according to their 
level, and gradually teach grammar - present them with a structure by structure. The input 
offered to them should be in accordance with the level and that would inevitably result in 
students’ gradual absorption of the new information.